The invention relates generally to an improved process and apparatus for the manufacture of electronic components, and in particular to an improved process and apparatus for the manufacture of a continuous web of parallel lead electronic components.
It has been proposed previously to prepare a continuous web carrier of electronic components of the parallel lead type, such as condensers. The components are arranged at equal intervals on a support band of continuous length from which manufacture, storage, transportation and the automatic insertion of the electronic components into a printed circuit board can be facilitated. When the electronic components on the web carrier are inserted onto a printed circuit board by using an automatic inserting machine, the electronic components must be separated from the web carrier. This is usually performed by cutting the parallel lead wires which overlap the support band and feeding the components into the automatic inserting machine. However, it is critical to maintain the dimensional accuracy of the spacing between the parallel leads in order to be able to insert the leads into the printed circuit board. After the leads are inserted into the board, the leads are bent to grasp the board. Heretofore, it has been difficult to maintain the dimensional accuracy of the spacing between the parallel leads of the electronic components which has led to difficulty in the automatic insertion operation. These difficulties lead to considerable down time of the automatic inserting machine which must be stopped to remove a defective component. Thus, it has been difficult to maintain the speed of the automatic inserting machine for inserting the parallel lead electronic components into the printed circuit board. It is proposed to alleviate these difficulties by controlling the dimensional accuracy of the spacing between the parallel leads of the electronic components during manufacture.